Jamie Carragher has compared Arsenal under Mikel Arteta with the early years of Liverpool under Jurgen Klopp.
The Gunners currently sit fourth in the table with a three point gap between themselves and their closest rival for a Champions League spot. With Arteta now having been Arsenal boss for two-and-a-half seasons, Liverpool legend Carragher believes Jurgen Klopp offers the ideal blueprint for the Spanish coach to follow.
For Klopp , it took roughly 18 months for Liverpool to finish fourth and clinch Champions League qualification. And the ex-Red has stressed the importance of Arsenal finishing in the same spot to continue the club’s development.
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"Arsenal need to get fourth, and when you're likening it to what Klopp did at Liverpool, Arsenal are at the stage where they haven't got a [Cristiano] Ronaldo. They haven't got a [Harry] Kane," Carragher said during The Overlap Live Fan Debate .
"The next two or three signings for Arsenal have to be Alisson, have to be [Virgil] Van Dijk, what they were for Liverpool. Where they take you from fighting for the top four, getting in the top four, to making that jump where you're competing with City, Liverpool, Chelsea.
"That's Arsenal's next thing. They need a really top centre-forward who can really take them up a level."
After reaching the Champions League at the end of the 2016/17 season, several pivotal moves in the transfer market helped build the foundations of the Liverpool side that fans are familiar with today. Both Mohamed Salah and Andy Robertson joined that summer, while Virgil van Dijk later moved in January, prior to Philippe Coutinho leaving for Barcelona.
That season the Reds would reach the Champions League Final, despite eventually losing out to Real Madrid. However, the arrivals of Alisson and Fabinho in 2018 helped mould the team that would eventually lift the club’s sixth European Cup that season, as well as win the Premier League for the first time, the following year.
